Vietnam may have to destroy dozens of thousands hectares of paddy rice in the southern region, the country's biggest rice hub, to prevent further spread of diseases and pests in fields, local newspaper Youth reported Friday.

Over 38,000 hectares of paddy rice in the Mekong Delta, which represents more than half of Vietnam's rice output and up to 90 percent of the country's rice export volume, have been infected with diseases and mined by pests.

Local relevant agencies are encouraging farmers to destroy paddy rice fields with over 30 percent of their acreage being infected with diseases or mined by pests to prevent their spread, the newspaper quoted Nguyen Huu Huan, deputy head of the Plant Protection Department under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The agencies are also proposing local authorities to offer financial assistance to farmers.

Vietnam, the world's second biggest rice exporter, has targeted to annually ship abroad four million tons of rice in the next five years, the ministry said recently. To this end, the country, under its strategy for rice production until 2010, will develop several areas designated for growing rice for export, including one million hectares in the Mekong Delta, and 300,000 hectares in the northern Red River Delta, aiming to produce 36 million tons of paddy rice each year.

The country expected to harvest 38-39 million tons of paddy rice in 2006, up from nearly 33 million tons in 2005. However it has recently decided to export five million tons of rice at most this year, down from over 5.2 million tons last year, in a move to ensure its food security.

In 2004, it had over 7.4 million hectares of paddy rice which turned out 35.7 million tons of the food in the year, according to country's General Statistics Office.